Solar Settlers

Solar Settlers

I got into the beta test for this game after enjoying so many other BGG games in the past. Playing Solar Settlers gives you that trademark BGG feel that there’s always more to discover. The mechanics are simple at first glance. Move your space explorers around an unknown galaxy, collect cards and increasing your population and production, build up enough habitats, and settle enough people before the game ends in the sixth round. Succeed, and your rank goes up. Fail, and all your colonists perish in the abyss of space. More importantly, your rank goes down.

Real player with 158.9 hrs in game


Read More: Best Strategy Procedural Generation Games.


Compared to the previous games of BGG this is in my opinion the greatest of all. Axes and Acres has always been my no.1 but I think it finally has to step aside for this one. We’ll see what will get the most hours of play time. Only time will tell.

The game is surprisingly simple to grasp but has enormous depth. The tutorial is short and you immediately know how to play the game. This is very different to the previous games where the tutorials were quite hard to grasp (although this has been improved in updates).

Real player with 97.8 hrs in game

Solar Settlers on Steam

Storybook Brawl

Storybook Brawl

Taken from the store page itself “Deep strategy meets enchanting fun in Storybook Brawl!”

–At no point did that sentence fail to deliver during the testing.–

For someone that is not new to this genre the mechanics were very simple and easy to manage. No issues with hand size becoming unreliable to click on (You can have 4 things). The very few ways I found to add more than the cap of 4 were always put into the shop for a 0 cost to enable the player to make decisions instead of lose things they worked for.

Real player with 337.4 hrs in game


Read More: Best Strategy Hand-drawn Games.


I went back and forth on this, but in the end, this no, you should not get this game. And that’s saying something, as it is free and remarkably free from pay-to-win or any other micro-transactions. The big problem is here is that your skill or understanding of the game really doesn’t matter - it’s all RNG. The game shifts heavily towards the end game with much more powerful creatures available, and if you can get them you win - if you don’t you lose. The best combos are ridiculous and insane and there is nothing, and I mean NOTHING, you can do if your opponent gets the cards. Then there is the problem with creatures and treasures that are just plain broken and are strictly better than anything else out there. Finally, this game suffers a lot from “win more” syndrome: if you win a brawl you come out in a much better position than you had going in, so once you are down a couple of brawls it can be impossible to come back from. Then there is the problem of people who are determined to try and force their favorite build every time, meaning you can be deprived of key characters for your build - and there are really only three or four viable strategies to begin with - by bad players who take you out with them and there is nothing you can do about it.

Real player with 276.8 hrs in game

Storybook Brawl on Steam

SUPER DRAGON BALL HEROES WORLD MISSION

SUPER DRAGON BALL HEROES WORLD MISSION

Wooo another dragon ball game that’s been ported from the arcade itself.

This is a turn-based/card game, so if like dokkan/legends this will be great for you.

(W/ broly update)

Pros:

  • Story is actually pretty good (xenoverse style)

++ Everyone is here, from DB to DBH, and everyone is unique with their own custom skills. So for sure you will find someone you like. (1100+ cards) and way way more coming/

  • Lots of abilities/skills/fusions

  • Most if not all super attacks look amazing!

  • Customization! From your OWN custom card(with any game assets) to your own custom missions.

Real player with 132.3 hrs in game


Read More: Best Strategy Multiplayer Games.


So, you want more Dragon Ball beyond GT and Super? welcome to Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission, if you’ve heard about Dragon Ball AF or have watched those spanish mod videos for DBZ Tenkaichi 3 the Heroes universe might not surprise you… much, as far as setting is concerned anyway, but let’s talk about the game itself, what the heck is this?

Super Dragon Ball Heroes is a port of the long running, Japan exclusive arcade game, Dragon Ball Heroes, in it you pick a race for your avatar, male saiyan, female saiyan, namekian, frieza, android, buu, demon god or kai and collect or make your own cards and accesories to form a team of 7 characters, each with their own stats, passives, super attack and character abilities

Real player with 122.9 hrs in game

SUPER DRAGON BALL HEROES WORLD MISSION on Steam

Love Letter

Love Letter

How do you manage to send a love letter to a princess? #dodging other potential princes On this board game, your mission is intercept other opponents' attempts to #make the princess their bit wife… Wait, that’s not sexist?

[olist]PROS:

  • A great adaptation from the classic Love Letter. #the UI, opponents, effects do match the ambient. But music… they played classical music #wanted some cool OST, sad face .* Singleplayer as well as local/online multiplayer #but no Remote Play Together… your friends have no excuse for playing you #unless they are poor..

Real player with 158.2 hrs in game

⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠁⠄⣼⡿⠟⠛⠉⠉⠉⠁⠄⠄⠄⠁⠈⠉⠙⠛⠻⠿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿

⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠿⠟⠛⠛⠉⠄⠈⠄⠄⠁⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠉⠉⠁⠄⠛⠻⠿⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿

⣿⣿⣿⣿⠿⠛⠉⠁⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠉⠛⠿⣿

⣿⣿⠋⠄⠄⠄⣀⣤⡤⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠈

⣿⣿⣧⠄⠄⢊⣵⣿⡀⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠠⣶⣶⣶⣶⣶⣶⣶⣤⣤⡀

⣿⣿⣿⣷⣄⠞⢡⡟⡇⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠹⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣟⠻

⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡌⠄⠇⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢹⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷

⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠆⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⡟⣿⡿⡏⠻⣇⠈⠙

⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡟⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠐⡀⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢹⢻⠃⠄⠄⠈⠄⠄

⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠁⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⣾⣧⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⣸⣷⡀⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠈⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢀⣠

Real player with 93.6 hrs in game

Love Letter on Steam

月圆之夜 (Night of Full Moon)

月圆之夜 (Night of Full Moon)

[UPDATED 23-10-2020]

So I completed everything I can think of, except for a few achievements that I am too lazy to deal with. Anyway, we now have a new DLC for the game. Imagine the joy playing as Little Red Mechanic, they also add in nightmare difficulty. This is awesome.

[UPDATED 01-09-2020]

I put in a lot of hours to try to achieve all the achievements, so far I’ve got 36 out of 63. Today, I completed Little Red Nun on hardest difficulty and then moved on to Little Red Witch Hard 1 and beat the Priest in 1 turn.

Real player with 152.4 hrs in game

Do not let the non-English title dissuade you from trying the game. There are some patchy translation issues, but they don’t reduce your ability to understand what the card does. This dissuaded me from buying the game despite seeing it in my discovery queue for a long time, but I am sorely disappointed that I kept passing it up after playing it when it became free. Three hours in and I already wanted to buy all the DLC to support the game.

If you like Slay the Spire and Monster Train, you’ll enjoy this. Maybe even more. There are more class options (9 total with all the DLC), the art is subjectively better, and the progression in the game feels more intuitive.

Real player with 129.4 hrs in game

月圆之夜 (Night of Full Moon) on Steam

Faeria

Faeria

Disclaimer: I am one of the mods for the Faeria steam forums, a mod for the Faeria discord server and also one of the Vanguard testers. However, I do all these things voluntarily, there is no payment of any description except for me kickstarting the game.

Time to update this review. If you want to view my old review, scroll down.

Well, it’s been some time, and to be honest, a lot of what I said in my old review still stands. The game is still easy to learn but very deep and hard to master, there’s still a card called Yak Attack (with the most amazing art) and the devs are still great with using feedback to upgrade their game.

Real player with 633.1 hrs in game

Table of content:

Introduction

Issues

Brief conclusion

Recommendation

Introduction

After my journey with Hearthstone (which i’ve gotten to legend and several 12 wins in arena) and Shadowverse (hit “master” which was the preveiously highest rank), I came to faeria as i was wandering on steam, and I immediately invested myself into the game as I realized the game is actaully more skill-driven or say has more potential for players to display their skill than the other OCG i played. Through thorough tactics and planning, each moves (position of creatures, location of lands, land type etc) can matter the game, and in certain matches if you make one single mistake, it can literally cost you the game.

Real player with 347.3 hrs in game

Faeria on Steam

Cthulhu Realms

Cthulhu Realms

I’m going to start here by saying - yes, this game is technically a reskin of Star Realms. But so is Hero Realms. And Star Realms itself is nothing more than a reskinned, watered down 2-player variant of Ascension. None of this makes any of those ‘bad games’, so let’s just do away with that right now. If theme is an issue for you, and sci-fi is your favourite theme, play Star Realms. If fantasy theming is your do-or-die, play Ascension. But if theme isn’t a super huge issue for you, or you like Lovecraftian themed games, then you should definitely give Cthulhu Realms a try. In my opinion, the gameplay is FAR superior to Star Realms, as it now includes triggers for cards being discarded and cards being ‘abjured’, or removed from the game (‘trashed’ for those of you who have played Star Realms), and I felt like building colour-themed decks or concept decks actually worked in this game, whereas Star Realms felt like ‘always buy the biggest attack card possible, ignore everything else about the card’ - there are even official strategy guides for the game which say the same thing. Cthulhu Realms is a great deckbuilder, the art is great, and although the iconography of the cards can be a little confusing initially, trust me - you will pick it up very quickly.

Real player with 109.9 hrs in game

A lot of people from the Humble Monthly are not familiar with Star Realms, but to break it down simply, this game is basically a variation on Star Realms, it is not meant to be like Hearthstone or Magic–in fact, I think it’s deliberately trying to avoid that format for something that you can pick up and play without worrying about “long-term investment.” Once you know the rules of the game and the basic mechanics, you’re set. It’s NOT a collectible card game. That’s kind of the point.

It is a deckbuilding game, predicated on factional synnergy. It’s highly similar to Star Realms, so let me explain the differences from that:

Real player with 15.3 hrs in game

Cthulhu Realms on Steam

Smash Up

Smash Up

If you like the card game you will probaly like this game as well. It is a great “port” and the artwork is beautiful as always. I really hope the developers keep adding expansions. At the moment only the base game and awesome level 9000 are included. Please give me my sharknado!

The AI is pretty good and can be quite challenging to everyone but really experienced players. But it is of course way more fun to play other people and I hope this game grows so you can just queue up for a game.

If a developer randomly reads this I have some suggestions for UI improvements:

Real player with 213.9 hrs in game

Smash Up is an excellent card game, and the digital version is fun, but imperfect. The bot AI strikes a nice balance between competence and efficiency, leading to challenging but not impossible games without the frustrating wait times for AI pondering that some other games suffer from.

The UI design prioritizes streamlined gameplay over clarity, so it takes some getting used to to understand what’s going on. It also is not a 100% bug-free game. Both of these issues are manageable, but definitely take some getting used to… don’t turn off the Proceed button, make sure to check the log if something happens you don’t understand, keep an eye on the scrolling text at the bottom of the screen, quit+save+restart+continue if a technical glitch occurs, and if all else fails, ask for help in the forums.

Real player with 46.9 hrs in game

Smash Up on Steam

Warhammer Combat Cards

Warhammer Combat Cards

Love the game but….

1 PC is just getting introduced to this game. Mobile has been going for awhile. SO PC people are WAY behind the eight ball.

2 Its all about time. Every 3-8 hours you need to log into the game to open loot boxes ( cards gold ) , get your quests,open timed prize boxes ( more cards ) and do some battles. And if there is an event do the event battles every 8 hours.

3 Grinding levels to be able to have more points to make your decks stronger and /or more cards in your deck.

Real player with 580.1 hrs in game

TL;DR:

  • game full of wonderful mobile game features! (timed loot boxes after a win, clunky UI, noticeable P2W (as in you get more cards, you can level those cards so they’re stronger))

  • deck size/total points locked behind very high rank (you’ll need to play for ~6 months)

  • combat is fun enough to overshadow all of the above

  • suffer through the first day or two - reach Rank 10 to unlock ranked - enjoy one of the best card battlers, IMO

Found the game from Warhammer promotion, decided to give it a try.

Real player with 182.8 hrs in game

Warhammer Combat Cards on Steam

3 Minute Heroes

3 Minute Heroes

i love this game! its an awsome tower defence game and i love the feeling of wining a boss when it looks like all hope is lost. really gets the blood pumping! i love to unlock new charectrs and use their new playstyle in battle. my kitten has meowed at the screen quite a few times, so i think she likes it too

Real player with 213.2 hrs in game

Perfect game!

There are many unique styles (character combinations) which guarantees new experience each run.

Real player with 27.2 hrs in game

3 Minute Heroes on Steam